Local Elites, Political Capital and Democratic Development Governing Leaders in Seven European Countries
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Stefan Szücx, Lars Strömberg
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Stefan Szücs, Lars Strömberg
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Local Elites, Political Capital and Democratic Development Governing Leaders in Seven European Countries
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VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften (GWV)
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9783531901107
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1
:
CHF 35.80
:
:
Politikwissenschaft
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English
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386
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DRM
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PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
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PDF
This book helps to understand in which ways local governing elites are important for the success or failure of national democratic development. Although we know a great deal about the general importance of civil society and social capital for the development of sustainable democracy, we still know little about what specific local governing qualities or political capital that interact with democratic development. The collected data covers time series of surveys from between 15 to 30 political and administrative leaders in over a hundred middle-sized European and Eurasian cities. The study takes us across the 1980s and 1990s, going from cities in Sweden and the Netherlands - through the Baltic cities - to the cities of Belarus and Russia. The findings show the importance of local political capital based on commitments to core democratic values, informal governance networks, and the significance of initially connecting the community to global, non-economic relationships.
Stefan Szücs, PhD. is a political scientist in the Department of Political Science and the Center for Public Sector Research (CEFOS), Göteborg University, Sweden.
Lars Strömberg is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the Department of Political Science and the Center for Public Sector Research (CEFOS), Göteborg University, Sweden.
Contents
6
List of Figures
8
List of Tables
14
Preface
16
Acknowledgements
18
Notes on Contributors in order of appearance
20
Introduction: Studying Local Elites and Democratic Development
22
Part I Western Democracies
39
The Untouchables: Stability among the Swedish Local Elite
40
From Despair to Complacency: The Development of the Dutch Local Elite
72
Part II The New Baltic Democracies
101
Toward Democratic Governance: The Lithuanian Local Elite
102
Estonian Local Elites a Decade after the Transition to Democracy
144
The Development of Democracy and Local Governance in Latvia
174
Part III The Commonwealth of Independent States
204
Local Governance in Belarus during the Regime of Authoritarian Democracy
206
The Formation of Democracy and Local Governance in Russia
232
Part IV Comparative Analysis Across Countries and Cities
257
Universal Change and the Conditions for Democratic Development
258
Political Capital and How it Grows
294
Conclusion: Democracy Needs Local Political Capital
316
References
336
Appendix
348
